Diego
New member
I hated it.
A friend brought his 60 watts Ironheart head + 2x12 Ironheart cab to my place, so I got to try my Tweaker with it and the Ironheart with my cab.
I'm shocked by how stiff and trebly the Ironheart sounds.
I got something similar to Metallica's Kill 'em All for some reason, all the time, and nothing else. And a bad take at it.
I expected it, being a modern Metal amp, to resemble something like Meshuggah, Fear Factory, Opeth or maybe Mastodon right out of the box. Instead all I got was a very thin sound.
Cleans were very very bright, a bit stiff, still very usable and adjustable. But the distorted tones were just terrible IMO, sounded tiny and harsh all the time. I tried the push/pull EQ thing and different levels of wattage to find the culprit but I didn't get even close to a tone that spoke to me. I imagine at higher volumes it should wake up, but at low volumes it's shockingly useless IMO.
I tried different levels of everything, EQ, and all I could find were different levels of fizz. It has a constant thing going on that reminds me of MXR distortion pedals. Or Marshall Valvestates when I used to play Death Metal, but worse.
I plugged my Tweaker into the Ironheart cabinet and inmediately found a better tone IMO. Meatier, rounder and much more "natural" to put it somehow. The Tweaker has a more even EQ voicing, and the gain is way more refined and smoother and it came nicely through the Ironheart closed back 2x12 which is bright sounding. The Ironheart has much thinner mids in comparison, which doesn't even make sense now as I'm writing it. But that what I got out of it.
I found the IRT speakers to be a bit uncharacteristic, slightly shy in the mids and maybe a bit raspy in the highs, but very workable and I'm sure that with some adjustments I'd get them in the ballpark. They're not bad at all.
I might buy one or two of these Laney cabs next year. They're better than anything with Rocket 50s I've tried at least and the price is very convenient.
Sadly, the Ironheart head was a huge letdown for me. I wanted to like it, and I'll try it again for sure. But I found close to zero redeeming qualities with it.
EDIT: I was quite hungover when I wrote this and I'm surprised by how negative I sound. I'm almost embarrassed. I can only think I did not use the amp properly or something, it sounded way too bad for Ironhearts to have a reputation so maybe I screwed up somehow?
A friend brought his 60 watts Ironheart head + 2x12 Ironheart cab to my place, so I got to try my Tweaker with it and the Ironheart with my cab.
I'm shocked by how stiff and trebly the Ironheart sounds.
I got something similar to Metallica's Kill 'em All for some reason, all the time, and nothing else. And a bad take at it.
I expected it, being a modern Metal amp, to resemble something like Meshuggah, Fear Factory, Opeth or maybe Mastodon right out of the box. Instead all I got was a very thin sound.
Cleans were very very bright, a bit stiff, still very usable and adjustable. But the distorted tones were just terrible IMO, sounded tiny and harsh all the time. I tried the push/pull EQ thing and different levels of wattage to find the culprit but I didn't get even close to a tone that spoke to me. I imagine at higher volumes it should wake up, but at low volumes it's shockingly useless IMO.
I tried different levels of everything, EQ, and all I could find were different levels of fizz. It has a constant thing going on that reminds me of MXR distortion pedals. Or Marshall Valvestates when I used to play Death Metal, but worse.
I plugged my Tweaker into the Ironheart cabinet and inmediately found a better tone IMO. Meatier, rounder and much more "natural" to put it somehow. The Tweaker has a more even EQ voicing, and the gain is way more refined and smoother and it came nicely through the Ironheart closed back 2x12 which is bright sounding. The Ironheart has much thinner mids in comparison, which doesn't even make sense now as I'm writing it. But that what I got out of it.
I found the IRT speakers to be a bit uncharacteristic, slightly shy in the mids and maybe a bit raspy in the highs, but very workable and I'm sure that with some adjustments I'd get them in the ballpark. They're not bad at all.
I might buy one or two of these Laney cabs next year. They're better than anything with Rocket 50s I've tried at least and the price is very convenient.
Sadly, the Ironheart head was a huge letdown for me. I wanted to like it, and I'll try it again for sure. But I found close to zero redeeming qualities with it.
EDIT: I was quite hungover when I wrote this and I'm surprised by how negative I sound. I'm almost embarrassed. I can only think I did not use the amp properly or something, it sounded way too bad for Ironhearts to have a reputation so maybe I screwed up somehow?
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